On April 4, Energy Transfer Partners' not-yet-operational Dakota Access pipeline leaked a bathtub-full of shale oil at a pump station in Spink County, South Dakota. The leaks prove that the water protectors have been right all along: Pipelines leaks all the time. The pool of tar left behind is just a warning of what's to come. Of the more than 60 banks helping to finance the expansion of tar sands infrastructure, the indigenous-led environmental campaign Mazaska Talks has identified 17 as worst offenders.

The Dakota Pipeline Is Already Leaking.
Why Wait for a Big Spill to Act? Julian Brave NoiseCat / The Guardian

(May 12, 2017) -- Energy Transfer Partners' not yet operational Dakota Access pipeline leaked 84 gallons -- or about a bathtub-full -- of shale oil at a pump station in Spink County, South Dakota, on 4 April. The station stands roughly 100 miles southeast of the site of indigenous protest encampments along the Missouri river, where for months in 2016 the Standing Rock Sioux's stand against Dakota Access captivated the world.

Despite enduring controversy over the Dakota Access pipeline, the South Dakota department of environment and natural resources did not issue a press release about the mishap because the department deals with pipeline leaks all the time.

The department only issues a press release when a detected leak threatens drinking water, fisheries or public health. It logged the Dakota Access incident in its database, but the spill remained unknown to the public for over a month until local reporter Shannon Marvel broke the story for Aberdeen, South Dakota's American News on Wednesday.

The relatively minor leak demonstrates the risk of technological and human failure inherent in crude oil pipelines. Just a few months earlier, on 5 December 2016, a North Dakota landowner discovered a massive, undetected 176,000-gallon oil leak polluting a creek 150 miles north of Standing Rock.

A month after that, a pipeline farther north in the Western Canadian province of Saskatchewan leaked over 52,000 gallons of crude on the territory of the Ocean Man First Nation. As indigenous peoples, ranchers and environmentalists have repeatedly stated, the question is when and where pipelines will leak -- not if.

As Donald Trump and the oil industry gear up to push forward Keystone XL and other pipelines across the US, we can expect talking heads to take to the press and cable networks to tell us that pipelines are safer than trains for the transport of crude, that regulations have stolen jobs in the heartland and that energy independence from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is paramount to our national economic and security interests.

From corporate offices in Houston and Dallas and network headquarters in midtown Manhattan, these snake oil salesmen will tell us not to worry -- the benefits of pipelines far outweigh the costs. Drill, baby, drill, and America will be great again.

To them, the benefits of pipelines look pretty sweet. Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren -- who has a reported net worth of $4.4 billion -- lives in a 23,000-square-foot home on 10 acres in Dallas's elite Preston Hollow neighborhood, where houses sell for tens of millions of dollars and where Warren's six-bedroom, 13-bath home features a four-lane bowling alley, a chip-and-putt green, a pole-vault pit and a 200-seat private theater.

When his Dallas mansion isn't cutting it, Warren escapes to an 11,000-acre ranch northwest of Austin, where giraffes, peccaries and Indian bison roam the property. America is awfully great if you're Kelcy Warren.

But who is forced to live with the costs of pipelines and the lavish wealth they build?

Not the predominantly white residents of the city of Bismarck, North Dakota -- the pipeline was rerouted from upriver of their settlement out of concern that it threatened the city's water supply.

No, instead the Dakota Access pipeline -- not yet operational but already leaky -- crosses under the Missouri river just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation. There it threatens the water supply of a community where 41% of citizens live in poverty.

In Standing Rock, adequate homes, schools and hospitals are few and far between, but a brand-new $3.8 billion pipe, which costs $1 billion more than the entire Bureau of Indian Affairs budget, is now in the ground. At any moment, a leak might contaminate the water supply of Standing Rock and the 17 million people downstream who rely on the Missouri river.

What conservatives and centrists and even some liberals really mean when they say that we need pipelines in order to achieve "energy independence" is that in the dogged pursuit of the last drops of the planet's oil wealth, some people are expendable.

In the short term, the expendables are the indigenous communities, ranchers and workers forced to live under the constant threat of petroleum poisoning. In the long-term, the expendables include all future generations condemned to a planet cooked by greenhouse gas.

Rerouting pipelines might protect a few expendables in the short term, but it cannot save our planet and its peoples in the long run. To protect the planet and future generations from a world superheated by fossil fuel, we must stand with indigenous peoples, ranchers and environmentalists against pipelines that lock-in even more emissions into the global economy.

A few dozen gallons of oil spewing from a pump in South Dakota doesn't just prove that the water protectors have been right all along. The pool of tar it left behind is also a warning of what's to come if more black snakes slither into the ground.

We need a just transition now more than ever. Not just for our leaky pipelines, but for our failing moral infrastructure, which has unequivocally defined indigenous peoples, the poor and our children as collateral so that a few men can frolic in palaces, safari with giraffes on their own properties and become unfathomably wealthy.

As the Trump administration attempts to ham-fist the Keystone XL pipeline down the throats of indigenous peoples, ranchers and the mother earth we all share, we must stand and say no. A better world is possible and indeed deeply necessary right now. Let's fight for it.

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Funding Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion (Including Keystone XL)We hunted down the names of CEOs and their
contact information for you. Here's what to sayJames Trimarco / Nation of Change

(May 13, 2017) -- Of the more than 60 banks helping to finance the expansion of tar sands infrastructure, the indigenous-led environmental campaign Mazaska Talks has identified 17 as worst offenders. These banks have either financed all four currently proposed tar sands pipelines or they've headed up major multi-bank loans to the companies building them.

The proposed pipelines are the Keystone XL, Energy East, Trans Mountain, and Enbridge's Line 3. All four begin in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.

Back in November 2015, then-President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada's application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, saying it would create only a few dozen permanent jobs, would have no significant effect on U.S. energy security, and would damage America's leadership role on climate change. President Donald Trump reversed that decision in March.

The indigenous-led Mazaska Talks campaign to stop the tar sands expansion is focusing on the financing of the pipelines.

"TransCanada doesn't have the project-level loans to build the Keystone XL pipeline," said Matt Remle, an activists and member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. "Our thought is to be proactive and stop the construction of Keystone now, before they start laying the pipeline down."

Remle says he's focused on convincing cities, tribes, and nonprofits to cut their ties with these banks. Cities that have divested or are in the process of divesting include: Seattle; Missoula, Montana; and the cities of Davis, Santa Monica, and San Francisco, in California. Individual divestment has moved more than $80 million from banks financing DAPL, and organizers would like to see similar effort directed at the tar sands financiers.

The organization 350 Seattle has been telling people to follow this script as an example:

Call JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon at 212-270-1111 and say:
Hello. I'm calling today to ask that Chase stop funding all new tar sands projects. Tar sands oil is the dirtiest form of fossil fuel on Earth, dirtier even than coal. All tar sands projects have been officially opposed by 121 First Nations and tribes.

Former NASA Chief Scientist Jim Hansen has called the tar sands expansion represented by the Keystone XL 'game over in the fight against climate change.' Chase has no business financing tar sands, and I ask that Chase issue a public statement that it will not fund tar sands projects like the Keystone XL or Trans Mountain pipelines. Thank you for your time.

Activists have also been asking people to send banks that message through their Facebook pages.

Here are names of banks and their CEOs -- along with their most recent phone numbers and email addresses, according to YES! research and ceoemail.com.

The following information was updated on May 11. Some banks will disconnect phones and disable email addresses. Contact us with adjustments that need to be made: submissions@yesmagazine.org.

The information compiled here is the latest information from Mazaska Talks research and contact information reported by the banks and ceoemail.com. If there are corrections or additions that we should consider, please let us know. This information will be updated as needed.

Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.